Thankful List for November *Continuous help from 3 college girls (who might as well list our home as their 2nd residence) *GA and TX State Senators returned stuff for our dossier *Sent dossier to Caring Hands in Washington, DC *Lots of auction donations *Lots of auction bids *Auction made over $4,700 (actually thanks to “extras” given- our auction has currently made over $5,000 and we haven’t even received all the winning bids yet!) *Painting Party that made over $500 *Tucker writing “I want Aida to come home soon” *Tucker’s prayers every day for Aida and Aida’s caregivers *Kelli and Whitney using their time at a Pinterest party to cut out stuff for my shirts *Sewed and delivered about 60 shirts this month (and thankful for all the help I had accomplishing that major task. And a special thanks to my sister who sewed a quite a few of those herself) *Caring Hands approved our dossier and sent it to our agency *Our dossier arrived at our agency just in time for our coordinator to receive it before she left on her trip so she could hand deliver it in the country we are adopting from (this was a huge answer to prayer)!!!!! *The Kinsley’s spent Thanksgiving in Ethiopia meeting their baby boy *Our first gift to Aida is on its way to her *Sweet friends who organized a fundraiser for us at El Chico’s and the over 100 people who showed up. *How encouraged and loved we felt eating dinner at a restaurant and looking around at all of the people there supporting us… it was overwhelming! *Not even counting all of the “extra” that people gave for auction donations, we have been given over $1900 in straight donations this month… we are getting so close!!!!And a few things that have nothing to do with adoption: *Being able to help friends when they need it *Our Thanksgiving thankful chains took over our dinning room windows... we have a lot to be thankful for this year *Student calling me when she needed help-Continuous supply of hand-me-downs for Libby from friends *Tuck outside playing a football game “Mom, I have 14 minutes left in my 23 minute halftime… if you want- I can spend that 14 minutes with you” *Libby’s new found love for her “bag” and that all she carries in it is an assortment of colored pom poms *Libby’s current obsession with the moon *“… God is greater than our heart” 1 John 3:20 *Annual fall chili dinner with the Sharp’s (neat to think that next year Holt will be with us and hopefully Aida too) *Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie *Birthday- Ben letting me sleep in and cooking me breakfast, coloring with kids/walk with kids, dinner out, 30 minutes at Hobby Lobby by myself, a surprise voicemail from my dear friend Dianna in Africa, watching a movie with Ben, lots of encouragement and love from cards, calls, facebook, etc!!! *Having food poisoning means that only the person who ate the bad food gets sick and not an entire household (thankful also that Katie was here to help Ben with kids while I was sick) *Mimi, Pops, and Katie came for Thanksgiving *Our 2nd time to participate in the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot (glad Krista and Jalee joined us this year) *Playing a special Thanksgiving day game of baseball in the dark with Tuck, Ben, Mimi, and Pops while Katie and Libby cheered us on *“You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings) and I give you joy (regardless of your circumstances).” –Jesus Calling